Sunday 12/22/19 - Are we listening for God?

Audio: click here (11:30am)

Ahaz and Joseph have very different degrees of openness to God.

Ahaz has a sign from God right in front of him, and he refuses to give his attention to it.  Isaiah, God’s prophet, says “ask a sign from God,” and he says “NO THANKS.”

For Joseph, He can find God’s voice even in the less likely places – his dreams.  A vision is a vision, but it would have been easy to write it off as a dream.   But he doesn’t.

The difference between Ahaz and Joseph likely stems from their very different images of who God is.

Perhaps Ahaz sees God as a tyrant, who really doesn’t care about us. Or, maybe God is someone who will only take care of us in very rare circumstances, if we first are living a holy and upright life or do other specific things to win his favor.  Maybe for Ahaz God is someone who wants us to take care of everything on our own, and is very distant from us, refusing to get involved.

For Joseph, God is present and active in his life. God is Emmanuel - “God with us”

Do we expect God to be present and active in our lives?

Do we think God is with us?  Or more like He was with us?

Time-freeze

Audio: click here! (8pm)


If you are close to God, time is always short.

Have you ever had an experience where it seems like time froze?  That things started going so slow because your mind was moving so fast?  Some people say that in a car accident or some other close call, that their whole life flashes before their eyes.  Time may roll on at a steady pace, but it doesn’t always feel that way to us.  It may seem like some things take forever to get finished, like high school.  Or perhaps a bad meeting.  On the other hand, “time flies when you’re having fun.”

For God, time is very different.  It seems to him that everything is flashing by quite quickly.  For example, the prophet Isaiah gives this beautiful testimony about the coming of the Messiah “on that day” – but “that day” is going to be almost 600 years later.  God is speaking hope to the people of Israel, six centuries in advance.  That’s a long time, for us. 

But if you are in tune with God, time is short, or rather always urgent.  Like the prophet Isaiah did in the first reading, John the Baptist shows us this quite clearly in today’s Gospel.  He makes it clear that there is no time for dilly-dallying.

 “Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand” (within reach)

“The ax lies at the root of the trees.”

“Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?”

Baby Jesus may be coming at Christmas, but we are challenged to be ready for the presence of Jesus the Messiah, the new King of David’s line, who will “judge the poor with justice” and “slay the wicked with the breath of his lips.”  When a just king comes to power, the only people that need to fear are the unjust.

If we haven’t been living as we should, (like the Pharisees and Sadducees) we hear the call from John to “Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.”

So are we going through life as if there’s all the time in the world?  Are we finding ourselves “sleepwalking” like spiritual zombies? John the Baptist or Isaiah have some good advice for us: Spend some time drawing close to the Lord and you will realize that time is precious, it flies away from us, and we need to make the choice now to give ourselves completely to Jesus.  He will be your king.  It makes all the difference if we live that way freely now, or if we live as if we are king.

One final note:  “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”  This theme also unites the reading from Isaiah to the Gospel passage.  The Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is also yours by Baptism.  Ask that Spirit to stir up in you, to keep you awake, and to deepen your choice for Christ the King.  For time is urgent, and our time here is short.

Homily 12-1-2019

Audio!  9:00am Mass

11:30am Mass

“Let us go to God’s house”   (“run to meet Christ”)

Lots of things to be busy about.  Pulled in many directions.  Family, friends, co-workers, shopping, wrapping, baking cookies or other yummies, decorations, etc.  Easy to feel overwhelmed.

Don’t forget the more important things which should also be on that list: prayer; quiet; quality conversations that don’t take long but are the best way to say “I love you”; and going to Mass.

(“run to meet Christ” with righteous deeds)

Keep first things first and second things second.  Don’t lose your priorities in the midst of all the noise. Let’s do Advent right so that Christmas is really a joy for us.

In some ways the message of Christmas flips the image of today’s readings - God is coming to our house.

“Cleaning” the house for guests.  - The coat closet under the stairs.  The top of the stairs.

Never really dealt with the mess.  The house appeared perfect but certainly wasn’t, and things came back out eventually.

Advent resolutions (“new year”).  Let’s do Advent God’s way, not our own.  Let’s get our spiritual house truly prepared.  What are the first things you are called to keep first?  Ask God during this Mass what He wants you to focus on this Advent. 

Sunday Homily

Jesus prediction seems pretty frightening.  In the 1^st reading, God sounds mean and/or angry.

He’s not mean.  He might be angry, in an okay and holy way. 

Anger (my advice during Confession).

Have you ever noticed how people “go off” on social media nowadays about some perceived injustice or whatever other thing makes them angry, and they are praised for it?  I find that an interesting contrast to the times in Scripture when God appears angry (for the right reasons and the right causes) and yet we might be quick to write it off or brush it away.

God wants to set things right.  God will set things right.  We will like it (or not like it) inasmuch as we have been doing things right.  If we are, then there’s nothing to be afraid of, but rather only something to rejoice in: But for you who fear my name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays.

The final exam of life is an open-book test.  St. Teresa of Kolkata (“Mama T” as we called her in college) puts the answer “in our hands” we might say, with these 5-words from the parable of the sheep and the goats: “You did it to me”

But it’s not about knowing the answers, it’s about living them.

The saints are great examples for us.  They lived the answers of the final exam.   (2^nd reading):  Brothers and sisters: You know how one must imitate us. For we did not act in a disorderly way among you... we wanted to present ourselves as a model for you, so that you might imitate us.

For Advent, you are invited to study our patroness.  Please consider learning from her how to love like Jesus in our world today.  The book is phenomenal.  I was actually reading it when Bishop Rhoades met with me to ask me to be pastor here.  It was a sign to me of God’s hand at work.

Get ready for the final exam, for we know not the day nor the hour.  You know the anwers to the test (you did it to me).  Let Jesus consume you when you receive Him today in the Eucharist.  Then you have nothing to fear in this life.

Sunday Homily - Zacchaeus and Identity

Audio:

9:30am - click here

11:30am - click here

8pm - click here

Jericho – the oldest city continually-inhabited.

If you seek the Lord who is already seeking you, you will not be passed by. Your desire for God can even change His plans.

living from your identity.

World: what you do defines your identity. Your value comes from your productivity.

God: “If you remain in me, you will bear much fruit.” (Identity defines you, then living from that identity produces good works)

All of our sin comes from a corruption of our sense of identity. We forget who we are and whose we are. If we do it long enough we can even seem to lose our identity. We feel disconnected and isolated.

Jesus as the great healer of our souls comes to re-establish our identity and reconnect us with God (the original meaning of the word religion) and with each other.

God wants us. It’s all about this relationship.

Prayer is that daily relationship.

Praying in Humility with "the Jesus Prayer"

Audio: 
Sat 5pm click here

Sun 9am click here

Sun 11am click here

HOMILY NOTES-OUTLINE

Sirach: The one who serves God willingly is heard; The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds;

As we mentioned last week in our homily, humility is a prerequisite for all prayer.  The words of the Pharisee today, although they appear to be a prayer, really is not.

For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy. –Therese of Lisieux

The Pharisee isn’t looking toward heaven – he’s looking at himself.  It’s the sin of Narcissus, falling in love with his own reflection.

Confession heals, confession justifies, confession grant pardon of sin. All hope consists in confession. – Saint Isidore of Seville

A great path to prayer and to humility is the Jesus prayer.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

The Jesus Prayer has two important purposes. The first is worship as with all prayer. The second is a discipline to help our soul gain control our overactive brains and create stillness so the Holy Spirit can work through us and help us live the virtues in union with God.

three stages of progress in its practice. You begin praying the Jesus Prayer by repeating the words of the prayer out loud or at least moving the lips. This is called verbal prayer. After some time saying of the Jesus Prayer becomes silent or mental and is repeated only in the mind. This is mental prayer. Finally, the Jesus Prayer becomes a continuous prayer in the heart, the inner core of our being. We begin with vocal prayer and do not force the move to mental prayer. This will happen naturally

In praying the Jesus Prayer, our holy Fathers tell us, we say it over and over hundreds of times as part of our daily prayer rule. It is best to add the Jesus Prayer to your morning prayers as this is when the mind is the quietest. Begin by saying the Jesus Prayer verbally focusing on each word. Repeat the Jesus Prayer continually for some time and then expand to longer. You will experience the challenge of dealing with your thoughts, the tendency for you mind to wander. Attention when praying the Jesus Prayer is important. Be sincere in your prayer and repeat it with contrition.

Prayer - Fire Within

Homily audio: 
9:30am click here.  
8:00pm click here.


You will lose the fight without prayer.  Tree beside running waters - Jer. 17, Ps. 1, Ps. 72.

Prayer itself is a battle.   (CCC)

There is so much more God wants to give.  “O souls, created for these grandeurs and called to them.  What are you doing?  How are you spending your time?” (John of the Cross)

Why so few?  “As he said all were called, I feel sure that none will fail to receive this living water unless they cannot keep the path.” (T. of A)

2 Any circumstances will work: growth in prayer does not depend on a person's immediate situation.: "the time is always propitious for God to grant His great favours to those who truly serve Him"

6 God gives prayer growth precisely according to our degree of readiness for it.  He forces no one.

(Helicopter trying to land.)

7 Retrogression is possible – backsliding into mediocrity.

John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila never say a thing about methodology.

Conditions for Growth: St. Teresa

Living, as we do, in a consumerist age that looks to technology to solve most of its problems, we will, unless immersed in a serious prayer life ourselves, assume as obvious that prayer is mainly something produced in a human manner.  This is partially true of beginning discursive meditation, but the trouble begins when the assumption is uncritically extended to all mental prayer.  That it is so extended is made clear when one reads books and articles on the subject of contemplation, or if one simply reads advertisements to see what is being sold (always the new "technique" or "mantra" or "process").  While some of this is good for some people at some times, the extension of it to most people at most times is more than misleading.  Extended indiscriminately, it becomes a dead end and more than a dead end.  It blocks real prayer growth.

For John and Teresa they have not a single sentence that speaks of methodology as a means to deep communion with the God of revelation.

 1 Primary need: to do God's will from moment to moment throughout the day.: The whole aim of any person who is beginning prayer-and don't forget this, because it is very important-should be that he work and prepare himself with determiniation and every effort to bring his will into conformity with God's will.

3 Conformity to the divine will does not mean merely that we fulfill the commandments, but also that we generously go beyond what is strictly required.: Everything we gain comes from what we give.  ... If you are to gain this, He would have you keep back nothing; whether it be little or much, He will have it all for Himself, and according to what you know yourself to have given, the favours He will grant you will be small or great.

4 Purification: from faults.  Even after she had been purified a great deal and was receiving "sublime contemplation" from her Lord, St. Teresa still saw an abundance of imperfections in herself: How I fail, How I fail, How I fail-and I could say it a thousand times-to get rid of everythign for You! ... How many imperfections I see in myself! What laxity in sevring you! Indeed I think sometimes I would like to be without consciousness in order not to know so much evil about myself.

5 Guided by Revelation, not by a naturalistic common sense.  (Follow God’s direction, not advice on technique)

**People advancing need to be especially alert to the subtle attractions to mediocrity that still lie before them.  The devil, says Teresa, is cunning with them, and he does not try to get them with obvious sins.  Prayer, she feels, is the best way to detect these allurements. God gives "a thousand warnings" (though Teresa doesn't list them, Dubay offers: loss of peace at prayer; pricks of conscience at small omissions and clingings; minor returns to worldliness such as overuse of frivilous intertainments or excesses in food/clothing/etc; corner-cutting of regulations; idle chatter)

 8 Virtue and Prayer are correlatives.  Earnest striving for virtue directly causes a deepening of prayer.  anyone who experiences being in love will readil understand how depth of love communion transforms style of life, and conversely, how style of life deepens (or damages) love communion. 9 Determination.  It is most important-all-important, indeed-that they should begin well by making an earnest and most determined resolve not to halt until they reach their goal, whatever may come, whatever may happen to them, however hard they may have to labor, whoever may complain of them, whether they reach teir goal or die on the road or have no heart to confront the trials which they meet, whether the very world dissolves before them.               

Specific Conditions               

1 Humility-Prayer is intertwined with reality - False humility thus gets us nowhere.  Not merely an intellectual acknowledgment, but must be reduced to practice.  Generous in sharing.  Obedience to human superiors (doesn't mean you can't talk or even question).  *Pride withers a vibrant prayer life*  Human blame is more secure that human praise (the latter she considered a torment: because like with Jesus, the soul is freed and it reigns when it is persecuted).  Self-defense/justification, while there are occasions when it is right, Teresa notes they are few (recall the silence of Jesus in His passion; also, it requires we rely on God's help to resist rebuttal; 3rd, in small matters that do not harm us, it can gain great spiritual victories; 4th, "we can never be blamed unjustly" even if it is for the wrong things; 5th, if you are vindicated by another means, your silence during the trial teaches much to the accuser; 6th, God will have others stand up for us when we need it (as Christ did).; 7th, gains freedom from concern and worry of others' opinion, and can rest more readily in God @ prayer). Detachment: A Note-Inner freedom from selfish clingings is so basic a condition for growth to maturity that an entire chapter in this book has been devoted to it (Ch 8).             

 2 Solitude: (not isolation!) a healthy turning toward one's beloved.  Try to put aside all unnecessary affairs and business.  Think of the plant choked up by the thorns in Jesus' parable.  For starters, a drastic reduction in our exposure to the mass media. Don't meddle in other's affairs.  Avoid Idle talk.  It is very important that those who visit us leave with some benefit, and not after having wasted time, and that we benefit too. Waste of time and prayer depth are incompatible.             

 3 Suffering and Growth in Prayer-Just as Jesus Himself had to suffer, embrace the daily crosses that are sure to come.  If the soil is well cultivated by trials, persecutions, criticisms, and illnesses-for few there must be who reach this state without them-and if it is softened by living in great detachment from self-interest, the water soaks it to the extent that it is almost never dry.  Teresa says thee trials God sends to those of deep prayer are often severe and intolerable, so that they cannot be borne were not God also to give special consolations. God gives help.  Love is the measure of our ability to bear crosses.             

4 Love-Generosity-Growth must happen in the midst of a life lived on a battlefield.  That battlefield is the people we are called concretely to love.